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Public
Employee Press Book Review Contracting
out: tool of the right-wing wrecking crew
In
The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, Thomas Frank tells the
tragic story of the policies that undermined Americas social safety net
beginning in the Reagan era.
This three-decade assault caused todays
forest of foreclosures, layoffs, bankruptcies and corporate bailouts ultimately
paid for by the victims of the chaotic, yet calculated, destruction of the social
fabric by the crew that came to power preaching family values.
While
Frank wrote at the precipice of the ongoing financial crisis caused by the recent
orgy of free-market corruption, his trenchant warnings are a call to action wherever
the discredited notions of privatization and contracting out prevail such
as in the current government of New York City.
Frank argues that this policy
revolution stemmed from the cynical, pessimistic worldview of the conservative
movement that sees government as the enemy and believes business best serves the
nation.
Many of the right-wing true believers who implemented the destruction
of the social fabric built by the New Deal and Great Society were lobbyists for
corporate interests wolves gathered for the kill. They aggressively degraded
public services, shredded regulations that protected Americans from corporate
greed and led a relentless assault on workers, particularly public employees,
for the profit of a would-be oligarchy.
Frank focuses on the real action
in the Republican casino, its embrace of free-market government, where
public services were handed over to the very corporate interests that wanted to
replace them to favor a business/political class with the mentality of wartime
black marketeers.
His prime example is the failed administration of occupied
Iraq, by ideologues with no experience providing basic services who contracted
out even military functions.
Frank includes a fascinating description of
lobbyist Jack Abramoff, tracing his origins as a political hit man
for the South African apartheid regime, through his nefarious efforts on behalf
of corporate sweatshops. While Abramoffs dramatic fall helped defeat the
Republicans in the 2006 Congressional elections, he was only one symptom of the
cancer that until recently infected all aspects of the American economy and politics.
The
Wrecking Crew is available in the DC 37 Education Fund Library in Room 211,
and the paperback sells for $15.
Mike Lee, Public Employee Press
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